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Friday, July 15, 2011

I'm a horrible person

No, really. I am. I did something this morning that I think any advice or relationship columnist would advise against.

I googled my ex. And to make things worse, I loved it. LOVED IT!

I don't know why, but this morning I decided that I wanted to a bit of research to find out what he's been up to lately. I like to justify doing this every couple of months because things didn't end well with my ex. He was controlling and manipulative and when I broke up with him, he became angry and vicious. I like to know what he's up to so I can avoid him. My worst nightmare is walking into work one Monday morning and finding out I've got a new coworker, in him.

Anyway, in my brief search (yes, it was very brief search. I'm not that much of a stalker) I found out that he was listed as getting his master's degree this past spring.

This is where we start to get into horrible territory. I became so happy when I found out that he graduated from grad school this past spring. I had graduated a semester before him. And, more importantly, he's two years older than me, which means, I was two and half years ahead of him.

Now, I will fully admit that I am an incredibly competitive person. I like to win. There are certain games I can't play with my husband because I just become uncontrollably angry when I start to lose.

But with my ex, the competition was always especially heightened. Because he was two years older than me, he always assumed he was right. He always knew more. Always. He loved that I was smart, but I couldn't be smarter than him. As much as he said he valued my intelligence and the fact that I got good grades and things came to me easily, he hated me for it. He never admitted it, but he did. I got my dream summer internship and he had to show off that his summer internship, the one he really didn't care about and knew they weren't going to make him a full-time job offer once he graduated, paid better. After dealing with that pettiness for five years, it was so refreshing to make a break and not have to regulate talking about my achievements because they might make him feel bad.

This information was just the sprinkles on top of the frosting on the winning after the break-up cake. I'm happily married, have two college degrees in five and a half years, have an awesome job working with robots, incredible relationship with my family, and will probably be finalizing paperwork on our first house in the next couple of weeks. All the things he said he wanted at 24. Well, he's 26 and has none of these things.